Source: Health Affairs
Less than two years ago, ONC and its non-profit operational partner The Sequoia Project—the Recognized Coordinating Entity® (RCE™)—published the first version of the Common Agreement to establish baseline rules of the road for national scale exchange. One year later, the first group of candidate QHINs was approved to proceed to implementation. At an event in February of this year, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra recognized and congratulated CommonWell Health Alliance, eHealth Exchange, Epic Nexus, Health Gorilla, Kno2, and KONZA for voluntarily stepping up and meeting the rigorous TEFCA eligibility requirements and the terms and conditions of TEFCA participation, and for committing to a 12-month go-live timeline (a seventh QHIN, MedAllies, was approved a short time later). Now, a short ten months later, five QHINs are “official” and have gone live with TEFCA exchange, and the remaining two are hard at work completing their implementations as well.